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Misuse of psychiatric diagnosis

Involuntary detention of a person in a psychiatric institution may not always be motivated by their mental disorder. Its duration may also be extended unnecessarily. Abusive internment may occur on basis of mental retardation, family disputes or in order to escape severe punishment for a criminal act. In the case of a well-known personality, commitment to a psychiatric hospital may more easily discredit his or her views, and avoid political martyrdom. It may also make the confiscation of property seem more justifiable, particularly if the person has held a responsible position.

Incidence:

Countries whose legislation does not allow for a precise definition of the terms 'mental illness' or 'mental disorder', nor for the protection of 'mental patients' against family and state, and where psychiatric hospitals are repressive institutions, offer greater possibilities for abuse. The commitment of dissidents in USSR to psychiatric hospitals, and the physical treatment they receive in these institutions, is clearly an advanced weapon of political warfare. In the early 1950s and again since 1965, it has been clear that psychiatric diagnoses of political dissenters are not based on clinical impressions or objective tests but on official instructions. Political prisoners may be committed to a psychiatric hospital rather than a normal prison, for brainwashing and indoctrination to combat ideological deviation, sometimes forceably confined for months or years. They may be punished by the used of powerful drugs such as triftazin, sulfazin and aminazin. In special psychiatric hospitals, where regimes are harsher, inmates are severely beaten by convicted criminals employed as orderlies.

About the Encyclopedia

The Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential is a collaboration between UIA and Mankind 2000, started in 1972. It is the result of an ambitious effort to collect and present information on the problems with which humanity is confronted, as well as the challenges such problems pose to concept formation, values and development strategies. Problems included are those identified in international periodicals but especially in the documents of some 60,000 international non-profit organizations, profiled in the Yearbook of International Organizations.

The Encyclopedia includes problems which such groups choose to perceive and act upon, whether or not their existence is denied by others claiming greater expertise. Indeed such claims and counter-claims figure in many of the problem descriptions in order to reflect the often paralyzing dynamics of international debate. In the light of the interdependence demonstrated among world problems in every sector, emphasis is placed on the need for approaches which are sufficiently complex to encompass the factions, conflicts and rival worldviews that undermine collective initiative towards a promising future.

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